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Newt Unloads on GOP Candidates

RUSH: Kathy in Napa, California, welcome to the EIB Network. It's great to have you with us.

CALLER: Well, thank you so much, Rush!

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: This is a thrill! Okay, I have to tell you, you're the number fourth man in my life besides my husband, my son, and my dad. They're all dittoheads, and they love you.

RUSH: I'm honored to be on your list.

CALLER: You're on my list.

RUSH: I just have to say: Kathy is one of my top ten all-time favorite female names, too.

CALLER: Okay, you just made me love you more.

RUSH: (Laughing.)

Oh my gosh! Okay, I listened to President Bush in South Carolina, and I was cheering. My man is back! I love when he wants to hunt down the terrorists. I love when he calls them "killers." I've been waiting for this. I don't know why he hides out and doesn't come and speak to us, because every time he speaks to us, we get behind him. So what I did was I wrote a note with my RNC membership and said, "Finally," and then I renewed my membership.

RUSH: Oh, they'll be happy to hear that, because you're one of few.

CALLER: Well, now I'm confused also because you're telling me that Newt went off on us Republicans, so...

RUSH: Oh ho-ho-ho.

CALLER: Now you confuse me, O'Mighty One.

RUSH: Let me get that, since you bring it up. Newt had a breakfast with the editors of the American Spectator, and the Examiner -- Examiner.com, a web paper in Washington -- wrote about it, and he called the Republican "presidential field as a 'pathetic' bunch of 'pygmies,' Newt Gingrich hinted Monday he might step in to beat Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. 'If, in mid-October, it's quite clear that one or more of the current candidates is strong enough to be a serious alternative to a Clinton-Obama ticket, you don't need me to run, [but] If it becomes patently obvious, as the morning paper points out, that the Democrats have raised a hundred million more than the Republicans, and at some point people decide we are going to get Hillary unless there's a radical change, then there's space for a candidate,' he added. 'So you'll know by mid-October one of those two futures is real.' Asked by the Examiner if he was prepared to commit to a run, Gingrich said, 'I'm perfectly happy to do what I do,' he said.

"'Whether that leads to the presidency is the country's problem, not mine.' Gingrich mocked Republican presidential candidates for subjecting themselves to a May debate hosted by Chris Matthews of [PMSNBC]. 'You're watching an utterly irrelevant, shallow television celebrity dominate everybody who claimed they want to lead the most powerful nation in the world,' he said. Gingrich ridiculed 'the idea of 10 or 11 people standing passively at microphones,' and said he refused to 'shrink to the level of 40-second answers, standing like a trained seal, waiting for someone to throw me a fish.' He added: 'These are not debates, these are auditions. By definition, the psychology of an audition reduces the person auditioning and raises the status, for example, of Chris Matthews.' ... 'I have no interest in the current political process. I have no interest in trying to figure out how I can go out and raise money under John McCain's insane censorship rules so I can show up to do seven minutes and twenty seconds at some debate.'" Now, about individuals, here's what he said about Fred Thompson. Are you still with me out there, Kathy?

CALLER: I am.

RUSH: Okay, here's what he said about Fred Thompson. "I'm excited to see whether Fred turns out to be as decisive a front-runner as John McCain...The guy who wasn't even in the race is now the exciting new name, having decided that he would leave television for the purpose of entering television." That's what he said about Fred Thompson. Of McCain: "The guy who had spent the most on consultants is on the verge, I think, of dropping out of the race, right after he collects his FEC [Federal Elections Commission] money." On Robert Novak: "Sometimes he's right and sometimes he's just venomous....He was once a good reporter, he's now just a personality." On Algore: "[Not] in touch with reality. ... The advertisement for his movie was the most viciously anti-animal advertising that I've seen in a long time. They had these little penguins walking on sand. It was terrible." Michael Moore. "I find Michael Moore so despicable I can't imagine looking at a movie by him. It would be like looking at a movie by Goebbels." Chris Matthews: "An utterly irrelevant, shallow television celebriity [sic]... (who) doesn't know anything." And he referred to the current Republican candidates, field of candidates as a bunch of pathetic pygmies. He unloaded. I see you're speechless out there, Kathy.

CALLER: I am speechless. I'm up for an October Surprise. If Newt gets in, it will just elevate everything. So, go for it, Newt! I don't know enough about Fred Thompson. I just want somebody. But when George W. Bush came out this morning, it gave me hope again.

RUSH: You know, he has been saying a lot about Iraq, but this was different. He came out and answered some specific charges have been leveled against him for four years that he has not responded to, such as, "Hey, there were terrorists killing Americans before we went into Iraq; there were terrorists killing Americans before 9/11 happened." These are the kind of things that we've all been pointing out to the libs, but he has not made that point, at least not as forcefully as he did today. Kathy, thanks for the call. I appreciate it.